Video: First Sprint 4G LTE Bandwidth Tests

The problem? It's easy to test a cellular network's bandwidth when nobody's using it. What will Sprint 4G LTE look like when it officially debuts?

The details are still a little shaky, but videos have emerged that allegedly show the first tests of Sprint's 4G LTE network  itself announced all of one day prior to the first unofficial testing video hitting YouTube.

In the first video shot by YouTube user "TheComputerMaster," he's allegedly able to hit a download speed of around 30 to 40 Mbps on his 4G LTE connection. His uploads cap out at a perfect 5 Mbps which, according to the anonymous tester, is the fastest such speed that Sprint's allowing during the "day"  whatever hours those happen to be. The tester is allegedly running his Speedtest.net benchmarks in San Antonio, Texas at a location that's near one of Sprint's new 4G LTE towers.

In a subsequent video, allegedly shot from a location 1.8 miles away from the tower, TheComputerMaster's uploads drop to around 3 Mbps and his downloads kick up to around 45 Mbps.

Given that TheComputerMaster won't go into many more details of this experience, nor list out (or photograph) the equipment he's using or the tower he's connecting to  he claims he doesn't want to get Sprint workers "into trouble," as the tower's supposed to be "private"  there's a little bit of skepticism regarding whether these videos are authentic. And, more importantly, whether they're truly indicative of the final speeds that Sprint 4G LTE users can expect to experience once the service officially debuts in their locations.

According to Android Police's Artem Russakovskii, TheComputerMaster is likely using an 4G LTE hotspot instead of a full-fledged (and currently, non-existent) Sprint 4G LTE smartphone to run these benchmarks from a tethered laptop. The IP address that appears within the videos does map to a location within Texas  fitting, since three of Sprint's 4G LTE launch cities are Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. And, of course, the LTE hotspot that he's connecting to is appropriately named, "Sprint4GLTE2100."

But here's the catch: It's not clear that the speeds TheComputerMaster is seeing are going to be the exact, final performance of Sprint's 4G LTE network  both as a result of future tweaks Sprint might put into place, as well as the future users that will eventually populate the network. His candid shots of Sprint 4G LTE performance are a nice sneak preview, but they still leave plenty of questions unanswered.

David Murphy got his first real taste of technology journalism when he arrived at PC Magazine as an intern in 2005. A three-month gig turned to six months, six months turned to occasional freelance assignments, and he has since rejoined his tech-loving, mostly New York-based friends as one of PCMag.com's news contributors.
His rise to (self-described) fame in the world of tech journalism began during his stint as an associate editor at Maximum PC, where his love of cardboard-based PC construction and meetings put him in...
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